Alone
by Tom Tomorrow
Summary: "I w-wanna go h-home…." The words scream in her mind. As if she says it enough it'll be true. Home. Home. Home... ll A prequel to Isolation from Kara's point of view. (Prequel to Isolation)


Author's note: There was some interest in me continuing Isolation, so I decided to make it a three-part series. This is the second part. It's more of a prequel, but oh well.

The world on fire is chaotic.

Where did it come from? Where did it come from?

It's screaming. It's splitting apart. Warping.

Kara's senses explode in the erratic catastrophe.

Her hearing is dissonant, runs amok as it amplifies everything within range. The calcified city water sledging through copper pipes, the harsh metal hydraulics of distant vehicle traffic, drill bits whirring against splintering wood, of snow hitting the roof, of her heart beat… beat… beating. Everything. Everything and it's too much. Too disorienting. Impossible to distinguish, slurring and sloshing until it is a massive cacophony of nasty discord.

Sight isn't much better. The walls spin circles around her, spouting patterns and swirling colors that the blonde is fairly sure shouldn't be there. Focusing then unfocusing like the lens of a camera, throwing blurred images to the forefront of her vision, before quickly snatching it away.

Nausea swells up within her. Courses through her muscles, infiltrates her veins, leaves her with limbs that refuse to cooperate in any sort of matter. Rao. Rao... She's going to be sick.

The blonde wants to block it out. Close her eyes, cover her ears, make it stop.

Instead, one hand clamps against her ribs, affirming the stickiness around the initial burning sensation. The other pulls at metal shelves and large cardboard boxes; at concrete walls and cast iron grates. Where is she? Focus. Focus. Focus...

Kara detaches herself from the panicky, fluttery feeling of shock setting in, of tinnitus that refuses to abate, of struggling for every breath – and they're getting harder and harder to come by, what with the burning stab wound to her side – the blonde tastes the cold burn of winter and coppery bitterness of crimson. Old snow and red. Frostbite on her tonsils and liquid blood flowing into her gut. It'll pass, it'll pass, it'll pass…

C'mon Kara… C'mon…. Focus.

She gives herself completely to the fight, and it comes automatically despite her murky perception.

And she hears it clearly then. The sound she'd heard before. A child's cry.

"-ara, the radiation levels increasing and there's four more heat signatures incoming. They won't be as easy to go down as the first one. You need to get out of there-"

The first one?

Winn's shrill tone echoes in her ears, bouncing off the walls of her mind like that of an organ in a cathedral. The order though, it comes through clear, but no, she needs to make them understand.

"There's a k-kid. There's a kid."

She murmurs. Her sight oozes out of the focus again, but her goal is set. One foot in front of the other, following the sound of the cries.

"You're injured, Supergirl. Abort the mission. DEO ETA is fifteen minutes. They'll take care of the kid."

Alex. Firm. Authoritative… Worried.

She stumbles a bit. Chest tight. And the next breath of frigid air stays there in her lungs; she has to dig her arm under her ribs to force it out. Her ears catch the spatter of blood drops against the concrete floor, when she releases her hold on the stab wound, like gallons of water splashing on the cement ground.

"Supergi-"

A foot comes out of nowhere. The heel of it planted firmly between the scapulae of her back, sends her flying to the ground. Skidding across the floor.

Kara rolls to her left side, using what's left of her flickering strength to dig into the concrete and slow herself down, unable to catch a groan before it leaves her. The pain is excruciating and her earpiece explodes with a symphony of noise from the DEO, assurances, questions, demand, but all she can hear are the pipes, the traffic, the heartbeats… Four... five?

There they are… the men Winn was talking about. But where is the kid's heartbeat? Focus... Focus…

She sees the swirling shadows of a masculine figure approaching.

Get up, Kara wills herself. Get up.

Another kick.

The blonde hears the harsh grating of bone against bone. She can feel the stab wound, shallow as it may be, squelch from added pressure. Stars explode into her vision, agony smothers reasonable thought, and her body refuses to listen to her.

Stand up… Stand up…

Another kick.

Oh Rao…

She's sure her scream isn't held back that time.

Her vision flutters, throws stinging shadowy curtains of salt across her eyes. And this time she can't contain the cough that threatens to abrupt. It alights like a warzone, triggering fuses of agony from her abdomen to her lungs to her mouth. Until everything is scorching, scalding, on fire.

Kara's hand press against cold concrete, try to find purchase as she rolls back to her stomach. Tries to alleviate something and her earpiece falls away in the disarray.

She doesn't see the next kick, to her head this time instead of her abdomen.

She feels it though.

And that's all it takes.

…. …. …

Consciousness comes back in short ebbing bursts.

Her senses flood her with useless details, with rotting wood and leaking pipes with rusting steel and the musty, molding mildew of a large space of a place that used to smell like home but now smells like the worst parts of old.

And… And if she concentrates the bitter copper of crimson. Some hers. Not all.

The sweeping wave of nausea hits her like a tsunami, like a tide pulling her under, before she can even open her eyes.

Frigid steel scrapes against the bare skin of her neck, bringing coolness to the loose strands of hair plastered to her face and her burning, sweaty skin. Kara twists slightly, itchy and uncomfortable, forcing her breaths to come in shallow bursts and gasps. And it's easier this time then before, if only by a little. The edges of her stab wound are beginning to congeal, the skin attempting to draw itself together, attempting to stitch jagged edge to jagged edge. But it's still not fast enough. Warm blood is still seeping, cool once it reaches her abdomen, frigid once it reaches her hip. Something is stopping the healing process.

And she recognizes this feeling now. Kryptonite. Where in the hell is everyone… is everyone getting that from?

Tears spring forth as a residual wave of pain shudders through, makes her gasp in pain as she allows precarious seconds to gift her with more awareness.

What's that feeling?

Hands… Hands…. Hands!

Two pairs of hands are moving her, pressing her against the steely cold surface, ripping at her cape. She can hear heartbeats now. Two… three? Not her own. Someone dangerous, smelling faintly of gunpowder, leather, and sweat. And the hands, rough hands callused from hand-to-hand combat, are unyielding.

The hands go for boots. One. Then another. Then they move up.

Nonono- NO!

Her side fills with white heat, sparks with agony, as she bucks away. The hands release their hold on her. In surprise or in shock, she doesn't know, but hard concrete greets her when she tumbles off the table. And the hard concrete rips her breath away. Maroons, yellows and darkened greys infiltrate her shifting vision when her eyes spring open in the shock. She springs back, rolling away from two sets of steel toed boots, hacking, rocking, trying so hard to open her lungs and let the frigid air back in. But then the hands are back.

Remember what Alex taught you. Remember… remember… You don't need powers to fight back.

Kara retaliates, fists catching on a mammoth of a human being. An olive-skinned man, well-built, tearing at his jacket, his skin, his anything. She kicks and coughs, he swears and backs off, instantly replaced by another. But she keeps going, keeps going. Gets a thumb into one guy's eye, lands a punch to the other's neck, but her head is spinning too fast, too bright. She's working without breathing, and that's her first mistake. A big mistake. Because now up is down, right is left. Sounds don't make any sense. And she can't even see what she's attacking

Someone pulls at the scruff of her neck. Yanking against her stiff shoulders, twisting her ribs at an odd angle, as she's hoisted off the ground into the air.

"Stop screaming."

A harsh growl, like gravel ripping under a tire. Telling her to shut up. To take it easy. To stop fighting.

She does not shut up. She does not take it easy. She does not stop fighting.

He slams her into the concrete.

Again. Again. Again.

Sight flickers dangerously.

Until she's seeing skeletons.

Again.

Darkness.

… … ….. ….

Kara wakes to pitch darkness with a hammering headache and nauseating disorientation. The world swims around her as she instinctively calls out, but her words are inhibited by the scratchy feeling of thick, cotton wool in her mouth. And her throat feels like fire, feels like ripped bloody shreds, as she tries not to choke on the object. So, at first, when silence reigns, she supposes that the lack of sound is a side effect of this, that she can't hear herself because of whatever they've shoved down her throat.

But her bare feet instinctively kick out, knees barely extending before they collide against hard moist cobblestone wall and she hears nothing. Nothing as her foot moves along the corners, cuffs the edges, hits rock. Nothing. And she can't see a thing. Panic mounts in her chest.

Breathing hard, she tries to lever herself up, but her wrists are caught, encased firmly in some fuzzy substance, anchored to the wall behind her back, refusing even the slightest movement. Her shoulders slam back against the concrete, already curling in defeat as the wound at her side sears to life. Kara utters a sharp gasp, and the cottony substance in her mouth slides deeper, rattling a cough through her weakened frame as she tries not to aspirate.

C'mon… breathe through your nose. It'll pass… It'll pass…

The burn of salt stings her eyes as she forces a shaky inhalation.

She can't smell anything either. No copper, though she can feel the blood. No sweat, even when it runs down her back. No wood, not even rock. Not even cold. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Rising fear and frustration worms its way up her nerves, clouds her mind, tightens around her heart. Someone has done something to her smell, her hearing, her vision.

And this place she's in… It's small, tiny, microscopic claustrophobic.

It reminds of her pod, of the Timeless Zone, of empty, empty space, but even then, she had her senses about her.

She slams her bare feet into the wall. The impact jolts through her, the sting of plaster and rock is harsh on her feet, the vibration aggravates her wound.

But she does it again.

Again.

Again.

" _Let me out. Let me out. Let me out!'_

The sound is muffled.

No one answers.

… … …

Focus on the present.

There was nothing else in the enclosure.

She'd tracked the perimeter with her bare feet again and again until she lost track of how many times, and she was no closer to escaping or understanding where she was. If anything, the repetition was starting to blur her memories, making it difficult to remember how long she'd spent here, and how many times she'd done this.

It had certainly been a few hours, but there was no way for Kara to be more certain than that. From the way her focus was wavering, she'd think it had to be night by now, but on the other hand, there was nothing to keep attentive, so it could be boredom. But it could also be the blood loss...

But no matter the time, she couldn't sleep. Sleeping was a bad idea. Sleeping meant dreams, and she had to stay alert. Because, the men must be out there, even if they're not outright saying anything.

Her side is reduced to a harsh ache, it's stopped bleeding, but it hasn't closed, she can feel stale air fluttering over the gash, accompanied with a nasty burning sensation when it meets the thin material of clothing they'd forced on to her. Her suit is gone, her cape is gone, and without them she feels exposed. Because she always has it with her now, the soothing words of her family crest, of her responsibility, and her promise to keep the city safe.

And with it gone she has nothing.

And she really really wants the familiar fabric back.

But she can't focus on that. It's easy to become obsessive, to scramble for something that she cannot control. And her thoughts are already darkening.

Find something else to do.

She starts counting from one to one hundred. In English first. Then French. Then Kryptonian.

Count, count, count, so she doesn't have to think.

 _Alex is coming to get me. I'm going to go home. Just wait it out._

The quiet in her ears roars in the silence.

… …. …

How much time has passed in this ebbing darkness?

Because exhaustion has a vice grip on her right now and usually she doesn't feel this bad until she'd been up for days.

Kara runs out of numbers. Or rather keeps going up until she forgets why she was counting in the first place. Her thoughts spring back to the forefront, dark and burgeoning at the edges of her mind.

The blonde's skin feels hot and sticky, like she's burning from the inside out and that perturbs her because she can still feel the cold staleness of air sledging across her like a living thing. An unfamiliar sensation of goosebumps prickles over her arms, accompanying her shivering shoulders and chattering teeth. Somewhere in the vestiges of her mind, she recognizes the clinical signs of cold, but she's never gotten so cold before. Not even at the Fortress of Solitude. And right now she feels so, so hot.

The pain is everywhere. Her nerves are frayed, sparking with fresh hurt that zips away when she tries to focus. It's there when her arms, numb behind her back, twitch, it shoots down her legs when she moves to stifle it, and comes to circulate at her side as she struggles to breathe under the resulting tightness. It's a struggle to keep everything in her stomach down where it's supposed to be.

The cool cobblestone her bare feet press against offers no respite.

So, when sleep fights at the edges of her mind, it comes welcomingly. Even when she's not entirely sure if it happens or if she's only imagining it as she slumps against the wall, head tilted forward. The only distinguishable difference between awakeness and darkness is the sensation of movement that comes when she opens and closes her eyes. And that even confuses her. She wishes her hands were free, so she could touch her eyes just to be sure.

Regardless, consciousness captures her now.

But, it makes no difference. Nothing has changed. The exhaustion is deep rooted. It refuses to go away.

How long has she been here?

What do they want?

Desperation curls in her heart.

They must want something, they always want something, but no one's asked.

But would she have offered something, if they did?

Dark thoughts shove forward.

And question she's been dreading forges a way to the surface.

These men haven't captured the extraction team had they?

They hadn't waited around until the DEO had arrived on scene and scooped them up as additional bait for their sick fantasies. They wouldn't do that, right?

But there must be a reason the DEO hasn't kicked down the door.

There must be…

No. No, she had to imagine they had gotten out. Had to imagine they were safe, that they weren't like her. Because Rao if Alex or Vasquez or J'onn or any of them were in her position... No. NO. They got out. _They got out, they got out, they got out._ And they're coming for her.

 _Alex is coming to get me. Just wait it out. Wait it out._

 _I'm going to go home._

Kara needs to believe that.

She needs too.

… …

The fever curdles Kara's blood, makes it heavy, sluggish, thick. Her nerves run raw under the swell. Screams from her ribs and lungs pulse lazily, diffusing into a thick haze.

It must be fever. Or infection. Nothing else can cook her skin like this.

She barely feels her skin amidst the burn. The intensity of her throbbing skull follows suit, fluctuates between spearing agony and a proliferating ache both Every breath clouds her mind with pain.

Perception takes on the same smoggy quality. The dull roar of her hearing stays firmly in the background, the inky blackness of her vision refuses to waver. The air seems to have thickened and taste is unhelpful, undercut by sputum, sabotaged by the cottony substance stuffed around the edges of her mouth.

Her breath comes in gulps… and so do her tears.

The blonde brings her feet together, until the soles, bloodied and raw from kicking at the wall, touch each other. The feeling is unpleasant, stinging, sending sparks of pain up her legs. But it's different, different is good. Different distracts her from the hunger. From the thirst.

She's gone without food for this long, theoretically in the pod, but she hasn't outside of it. And she feels the ache gnawing away at the inside. Feels her posture wilting from the dissipating energy, muscles shaky running on fumes. Feels her heart fluttering, skipping beats, and it hasn't done that in a long time.

Stop crying. Stop crying.

Crying means weakness. And she isn't weak.

They're coming. They're coming to take her home.

Kara sits motionless and burns from the strain of not straining, of trying to force a calm she can't feel. Her heart heavy, lodged in her throat. Teeth grinding into the wooly, cottoning substance.

She's going home. She's going home. She's going home.

Or maybe this had always been home. Maybe she'd never left.

No, that's stupid.

The world spins around her.

Until she can't feel anything at all.

… …. … …

Her dreams twist when she's stressed. Morph into strange, bizarre creatures. Become vivid.

It happened all the time on her first weeks on earth. In the days where she'd shake the house with her nightmares.

Now it happens every time she inches past REM sleep, but her powers aren't here to help.

This time it's Kal. Except it's not Kal.

The muscles on his body had bulked up, except around the stomach which hangs looser than she ever remembered. His uniform hangs loose from his ribs. His hands, now too big, press against an invisible force, the only thing preventing him from getting to her.

His face presses in front of her. Gruesome twisted, sunken, no fat, just stringy, melting muscle. With vicious white sharp teeth that snap angrily at her, and where his eyes should be are black pits in his head.

Black. Black. Black.

Black like the darkness. Black like the abyss.

Her eyes snap open.

The fear doesn't abate, especially when the black doesn't go away.

Groaning, Kara presses her chin further into her chest. It wasn't real. It wasn't real at all, she knew that. He was... he was… He was...

He couldn't be here. He was on... hell if she remembered the city's name. But he can't have ended up here because...

Because...

She doesn't know.

It's hard to remember.

When she blinks, trying to clear her head, the echoing shadowy figure of Kal-not-Kal's grotesque grin wavers in her mind.

"No," she murmurs, and it's strange to speak and not hear her own voice, but she can feel the vibrations against her vocal cords. Or was that her? Could she even tell what was her own anymore? Was she sure?

Was it a trick of the mind?

She's so, so tired.

At one point, she thinks she hears voices. Ones she doesn't recognize, but when she strains her hearing, there's nothing but the dull roar of silence in her ears.

… …

"Kara!"

She perks up straightens abruptly, ignores the pain in her ribs, ignores the nausea that comes with the sudden movement.

Alex?

Her sister sounds distant. Far, far away, but here.

"Kara!"

Her sister sounds scared, like she was crying, in pain. The blonde jerks her head around, heart rate skyrocketing, trying desperately to poke through the inky fog of darkness, and pinpoint Alex in the dark.

"Kara!"

More voices. Winn. J'onn. Vasquez.

Calling her, begging her, screaming at her in pain filled terror.

"I can't get out!"

"Why aren't you helping?"

"Why did you leave us?"

Kara shudders violently, breath coming in wet gulps, as she shakes her head in denial. She hadn't left them. She was trying. But not hard enough. Not hard enough because they needed her and she was stuck. Immobile. Weak. Weak. Weak and scared. But she wasn't supposed to be anything of those things and she wasn't allowed to fail them, she'd made that promise early on.

"Kara!"

The blonde freezes.

Astra.

But Astra isn't supposed to be here. Astra is dead. She's dead? Is she?

She struggles to think over churning nausea, over feverish pain, over rippling agony, and screaming voices.

Focus. Focusfocusfocus-

Something's off.

She can't hear their heartbeats. She can't hear them move. Can't hear anything else in the environment around her.

Just voices.

Her heart sinks. Her eyes burn. She bites down on the cloth in her mouth until she tastes copper in her mouth.

She's dead. She's dead.

Astra is dead.

The voices aren't there.

They're just hallucinations.

"It hurts!"

"We need you!"

Why does it sound so real?

Voices she loves, so muffled and far away. Voices Kara didn't want to hear. Not if they weren't actually here.

"No," she moans, shaking her head. "No, I don't want that. Please, I don't."

The voices don't stop, if anything they scream louder.

"KARA!"

Choking back a sob, she slams her head against the concrete.

The impact is agonizing. The pain is searing, and the jarring hurts her shoulders, shoots stinging vibrations that storm across her chest and abdomen. However, the sudden action silences the voices.

But she's left with the silence.

Again.

Alone.

Again.

"What do you want from me?"

She screams around the cloth.

No one answers.

"I just want to go home. I want to go home. I wanna go home!"

Silence greets her response.

She slams against the concrete again… again… again… and let's the darkness take her.

… ….

She wants to go home...

Home…

Home…

Home…

She feels wet liquid at her palms, from her nails digging in tight.

It doesn't bring coherence back.

It doesn't bring her home...

… … …..

Something's different. Something's changed.

The air isn't stale anymore, it's moving over her.

Something strange, warm and dry, is moving on her arms. Pulling at something. Sawing away.

Her arms fall away from the wall when the movement ceases, but Kara can't find the will to move them. And then, suddenly, there is a warmth at her back, a human heaviness pulling her from her kneeled position.

Sluggish realization spurs adrenaline as she realizes with a paralyzing fear what the familiar touch is.

The hands are back. Hands. Hands.

They're finally back.

She bucks trying to get them away. Ignores the burn, the tightness, the everything. Kicks out with whatever strength is still remaining. Coming into contact with something, over and over again.

And for a moment she's left alone, but then the hands are back with determination, grabbing at her head, but something's different. These hands are warm and feminine, instead of rough and masculine like the ones before. But that could mean anything. So, she fights harder, arches her back, flays her legs, and in her struggle, something falls away and suddenly cool air is flowing across her face. It feels strange, uncomfortable, unwelcome. And she can feel herself screaming, jerking away, kicking out at the figure that struggles to grab her again.

The hands move down and something's being pulled from her ears.

The world explodes into a cacophony of sound. To go from nothing to everything is horrific

To feel the world, huge, foreign, and unfamiliar as she presses into the corner, open up around her, spears dagger after dagger into her brain. Creating an infinite space that she cannot sense, cannot navigate. And it's too much. Too harsh. To… Rao! Make it stop! Make it stop!

She shoves harder against the wall, breath rasping in her throat, until she's choking on the cotton.

A voice, distant and distorted, but somewhat familiar, says something, but all Kara can think is that these are the hands that belong to the voice. And hands are bad. Hands do bad things. Hands touch her...

Kara desperately wrenches away, even as the hands pull her close, pull at the cotton that threatens to suffocate her.

The nausea comes to a peak and the sting of bile in her mouth is sour and bitter as she heaves what's left in her stomach. The sound of impact is excruciating and as her hands fall away from her back and she uses them to cover her ears. Even when the feeling of warm, clumping blood against cool, pallid skin sends shudders down her spine.

"I… I w-wanna g-go home…"

She mumbles, and her voice, slurred and raspy, is almost unrecognizable to her ears.

"I w-wanna go h-home…. I-I want t-to go home. I wanna... I wanna g-go h-home"

The words scream in her mind. As if she says it enough it'll be true.

Home.

Home.

Home.

Home.

I wanna… go home… home…

"Hey, hey, you're okay. You're okay."

Soft-spoken words echo over the cacophony of destruction, slipping their way soothingly past the poor defense of her hands pressed against her easy.

"You're okay. We're going home now. Let's go home okay?"

It's Kryptonian. Curling over her mind like a warm blanket.

The hallucinations hadn't spoken Kryptonian.

Not even Astra.

"You're safe now, Kara. Safe. We can go home now, it's okay."

She cries.

Author's note: Let me know what you thought? What do you want to see in the final part. It's most likely going to come from Alex's point of view as she struggles with Broken Kara and Maggie coming into her life again.


End file.
